A Good Idea for Writing Centers in Second Life, A Little Late

Location: Writing Lab Newsletter

Image credit: Flickr image by Marriott Library, University of Utah

I read this monthly journal about the theory and practice of peer tutoring, and I've not given a lot of thought to how virtual worlds might help. After all, my campus is residential and small. We do not have a widely dispersed student body living off campus, and the interest in virtual worlds hovers between "nil" and "huh?"

But not all schools work that way, and I was surprised to see Russell Carpenter's and Megan Griffin's "Exploring Second Life" in the March 2010 issue. I was slow getting to it; you can pick up a free PDF copy of the issue online but it's not easy. Click and then find volume 34, number 7.

Their piece came long after the hype cycle for SL had tumbled into Gartner's "Valley of Disillusionment."  As I will explain in a forthcoming post, at a recent VWER meeting my assertion went unchallenged when I called SL a "legacy application" in education.

In spite of that, Carpenter's and Griffin's piece was enough to make me reconsider the beneficial effects of virtual worlds for writing practice, something I'd dismissed here some time ago. It won't change my own campus practice, yet. It might, at some future time, change how I interact with other directors and peer tutors. Notably, the authors claim that:

• SL provides a more "personable" space for interaction with writers than does a 2D conferencing application.
• Using SL was easy for staff and writers, but building "requires scripting and programming experience along with a great deal of patience."
• The presence of white boards to display video and other materials offers a unique and immersive experience.
• The ability to share real estate with other schools lets writing tutors share best practices cheaply.

And that last application of SL is the "killer app" to me. I would love to find a way to get Consultants more engaged in seeing what occurs at other schools without physically going there, and even observing tutorials within the privacy regulations of FERPA and university-specific policies.

At present, I have no clear idea how many writing centers maintain an SL location. A Google search turns up centers for Michigan State , the University of Missouri St. Louis , The University of Central Florida centers. Bowling Green State's center comes up in search, but in reality it closed after a new director, with little interest in SL, took over. The spot not far from our VWER Roundtable venue now houses another project.

There may be more. I only hear anecdotes. Writing Centers have long been experimenters, but given our lack of professional time and funds, Second Life may be one of those experiments that never quite reached a conclusion.

Creating Claustrophobia in a Build

Location: Attic, Virtual House of Usher

I'm close to finishing the SL build, at least to the point where I'll open the doors for visitors. Later, we will schedule a few events with our Usher actors.  I wanted, first, to address some concerns that my last group of students had in the OpenSim build.

See the chest to the left of my avatar? It's way too big, and I cannot resize it.

Normally, I'd build something or do without, but here, I  decided to "leave it big" (also letting me pull out an old inventory item we liked before).

Students noted that the House in Jokaydia Grid was not cluttered and crowded enough, and in both OpenSim and SL builds run bigger, with taller ceilings, than most real-life spaces.  That's the fault of 8' tall avatars and the clumsy way the camera follows  us when we move.

To create claustrophobia in wide-open spaces, I have tried a few methods to "trick the eye." These reverse the process I wrote about for creating the illusion of vast distance. Notably:
adding low-prim partitions and obstacles in rooms

• splitting some Jokaydia-Grid rooms into two rooms in SL
•  living with the jumbo-sized SL items, or making some things a little larger than to-scale. That way, space gets crowded!
• tinting distant items slightly darker to add complexity to the space. This also keeps the build from being too bright, a complaint by a few of my students last term.
• adding prims, such as rafters in the attic, that lower the ceiling without making the camera bounce around when an avatar walks.

In doing these things--and I am sure I will find more techniques!--I continue to be amazed at the low-cost affordances of building in SL or OpenSim. While some educators are tempted by Minecraft or Unity 3D, I would ask them to consider the outcome desired.

For now, at least, for low-volume simulations SL and OpenSim suit my needs perfectly. I've been back to the Trident Main Store again and again for items I cannot or do not wish to build. Unlike some of the mesh items from Turbosquid that John Lester showed me for building, the costs have been trivial, a few thousand Linden Dollars total.

Kodak, iBooks, and a Day We Should Recall

Location: Crux of history

Yesterday's technology news featured two events worthy of an annual commemoration: the Eastman-Kodak bankruptcy filing and Apple's announcement of its iBook initiative.

Both show how corporations can prepare for changing times...or not. Kodak, inventor of the first digital camera, did not market it because the impact would be disastrous to their film-based model. It provides yet more evidence why Tim Wu's model of "disruptive technologies" often get suppressed in the name of profits. Fuji and other companies adapted to changing times and Kodak proved late to the game.

Apple, the champion of technological comebacks, took a different route ever since Steve Jobs' return to the firm. Every iOS device released was lambasted, at first, by mainstream reporters. Jokes about the iPad in particular were sharp and pretty darned funny, to this observer.

Unlike Kodak, however, Apple took a long view of how the devices might disrupt their sales of traditional computers, always far behind those running Microsoft's OS. Yet with less to lose, perhaps, Apple could gamble big on the future of digital content. I got angry at Apple, not long ago, over the iPad. It seemed to be Jobs' "up yours" moment to Mac loyalists.  Now, the post-Jobs Apple plays the two computers as one system: create content on the Mac, show it on the iPad. Apple still won't put Flash on the iPad, but so far I'm happy with their device.

And with the textbook announcement, they realized something I had said for years: the printed textbook is obsolete. Publishers rush to release new and expensive editions that students must lug about and then resell at a loss. These paper texts lack multimedia. My analogy for this is a botany text I own and love: the printed and $100 version can have color plates from a cloud-forest in Costa Rica or the Great Barrier Reef. The online version would have live video-streams from Webcams and embedded video demos.  It would cost $20 and not be able to be resold.

Kodak wanted to sell you a roll of film. Apple wants to sell school systems an ecosystem: cheap iPad with publisher-vetted content that cannot be resold. Brilliant.

Why did publishers wait so long? Apple took the systemic and long view, while Eastman Kodak sat on innovation.

And thus empires rise and fall.

Personal PS: we disconnected our land-line phone yesterday, for good. Of all days! I do have a dumb phone, while my more social wife got the iPhone. Call, and I may get back to you. Eventually.

“Possible, Probable, and Preferable Future of Education in Virtual Worlds”

 
Location: VWER Meeting

Every year, I look forward to this event. In 2009, it is where I first met AJ Kelton and many of the folks to whom I later became close colleagues. The full transcript of the meeting can be found here. It's full of good advice and links for educators.

Now that Iggy, my avatar, has turned five years old (500 years in SL time) it's informative for me to compare the notes by our panel of experts who met on January 5 with my own youthful enthusiasm from 2007.  This year our panelists were not grim, but they advised diversity and moving past a focus solely upon Second Life. Sarah Smith-Robbins, who could not attend our meeting but has been a regular in years past, has a worthwhile and detailed assessment of the situation, "Are Virtual Worlds (Still) Relevant in Education?"

Our answers will differ. For me, "yes, when I again teach a course using 3D simulations, probably in two years."

As readers ponder their own uses of the technology, consider these predictions and observations:

• All of the panelists felt it had been a hard year for educators in Second Life, and that the sector has diminished as faculty look to alternatives that are cheaper and more autonomous of one company's control. 
• Interest in other virtual worlds has not necessarily spiked at the universities represented by the panelists; budgetary issues and the rise of mobile technology have worked against the expansion of faculty and student use of virtual worlds.
• Jokay Wollongong noted that more of her attention has gone to Minecraft, and that the SL presence for Jokaydia has diminished. In particular, the interaction of parents and their children in Minecraft has been transformative for her work in education
• Ken Hubble, of the Canadian Border Crossing Project, will move his work from Second Life to Unity 3D. He prefers the interface and learning curve for Unity 3D, when designing simulations.
• Anthony Fontana was more upbeat about technology, giving us three words: “gamification, mobile, and Web”
• Wainbrave Bernal (Jonathon Richter) notes "I am seeing more researching into practice – applied research. . . . check out the ARVEL wiki for growing body of research in virtual worlds, augmented reality, and games – as well as emerging technology."

Despite a rough year behind us, none of the VWER guests were pessimistic. As Fleep Tuque (Chris Collins) notes about the year to come, "the focus will be less on a specific platform than on how we can bring together various technologies. My focus more on helping faculty and students learn."

And that sounds right to this blogger and educator.